Its Hot and Cold as Club Quickplay Championship Begins

It was 29 degrees centigrade in Kenilworth yesterday, as the first of three legs of the new Kenilworth Quickplay Championship got underway. Inside the Holiday Inn, though, it was decidedly parky, as the air conditioning was seemingly turned up to 11 and frostbite, rather than heatstroke, was the more likely affliction for the 12 players who contested a 7 round (slow) Blitz (5" + 2'). There should have been 14 players but Rhys (unwell) and Joshua (who knows!?) were late withdrawals.  But all twelve starters would surely agree with Little Feat that "it was freezing cold in that hotel!" Great version here, with Bonnie Raitt on guest vocals.

The tournament was only able to function smoothly thanks to Gregory, our 14 year old National Arbiter, who was able to set things up on Swiss Manager and handle the pairings, results and grading functions with an ease which made both Ben and I very embarrassed after our own pathetic attempts to master the software!

Javi started off as hot favourite, but something went very wrong in Round 2 when he contrived to lose on time against me, in a probably winning endgame - though as he pointed out to me afterwards, I had missed the one move win of a piece earlier! This put me, Mike and Dave in the early lead but somehow I then just kept on winning, getting myself to 6/6. Before the last round, Javi had recovered to lie in second place on 5 pts, with Dhairya and Ben back in a tie for third on 3.5.

The last round pairing had me as Black against Ben, and all I needed for victory was a draw, but as this is a three leg event, with the best 2 results on game points counting, I decided that it was more important to go for broke rather than try and wimp out with a draw. (Which Ben may not have accepted, of course!) You can all guess what happened next. Ben played a monster game and took several of my pawns before annexing a piece and then delivering mate. Brutal!

Of course, Javi then won his Round 7 encounter with Dhairya to catch me on 6 points. Ben's demolition job on me meant he finished in clear third place on 4.5. But this is just the first of three events, so there's plenty of twists that might happen yet - and the tournament winner might even not have played a single game yet! Who knows who might turn up for events 2 (Rapid) and 3 (another Blitz)? BTW you can play one of these events without being a member of the ECF, but you won't be allowed to play in a second without at least Bronze membership.

So the future dates for your diary are July 31st for leg 2 and August 28th for the potentially decisive leg 3. By the way, there will be a prize of £25 to the overall winner, and £25 to the best placed player under ...... a rating yet to be decided by Ben. Though on the evidence of yesterday's field, the rating cap will possibly be in the vicinity of 1700. Anyway, no need to panic yet as Ben will be in touch with everyone to take entries before each of the two remaining legs.  In the meantime I will enjoy my position as joint leader while it lasts - which will be until July 31st!

KCC Routed in 50th Anniversary Celebration Simul!

It was a great day for the club yesterday, when we hosted a simultaneous display from England's legendary Super GM and 8 time British Champion, Mickey Adams. Well, it was a great day in every respect except the score, as Mickey turned on the turbo chargers to leave us losers by a score of 28.5-0.5! Massive congratulations to Andy Ward for preventing the clean sweep and retaining just a bit of dignity for the club!  In the end there were 22 KCC participants, as Dhairya was unable to get to the venue in time from a football match, plus 7 of Paul's most promising students from the Coventry Chess Academy, who we were delighted to invite to join us. With none older than 11, and three of them only 5 (yes, 5!!) it was something of a baptism of fire to be playing a man once ranked 4th in the world - behind only present/future World Champions Kasparov, Kramnik and Anand! - but they all did themselves and the CCA proud with both their play and their behaviour.

And, as you can tell from the score, it was no better for the older and more experienced KCC contingent. We had managed to bring in 2 of our big guns, Jude and Javier, to fill the top boards and - surely - put us on the scoreboard, but regrettably these were 2 big guns who were only able to fire blanks and were readily put away by the GM. Andy B dropped a pawn early on Board 3 and despite determined play inevitably went down to defeat. I thought I was doing rather well (+1.8 at one point!!) but got well outplayed at the critical moment and ended up in a mating net where my extra piece was not much consolation. On Board 5 Keatan got into a big tactical melee which looked quite promising, but Mickey had seen a bit further and when the fireworks finished he was a pawn ahead and inevitably winning.

I failed to see much of anybody else's games, and while I have collected all/most of the score sheets, I haven't had a chance to play through them yet. (Watch this space - I'm sure that some of the games will feature on the Blog in due course.) At the very end it was only Mike and Algis left, but Mike was powerless to stop Mickey promoting to a second queen, while Algis - the last man sitting - had to concede as a central pawn push destroyed his position and won material.

So full marks and maximum kudos to Andy who, together with Ilyas from the CCA juniors, won a best game prize, selected by Mickey, and each received a signed copy of his ECF Book of the Year, Think Like a Super Grand Master. (Shame none of us read this before the simul!) Naturally, you will want to see how you go about drawing against a Super GM, so here's the game. The Lichess Stockfish tells me that Mickey played at 94% accuracy and Andy at 95%! Impressive or what?! 

Just like Julius Caesar, Mickey would be well entitled to say, "Veni! Vidi! Vici!". So many congratulations to our visiting GM, who was a very friendly and engaging guest - and a frighteningly strong chess player. If Jude, Billy or Keatan can't win the English Championship in Kenilworth in July, I hope its Mickey who can regain the crown he last won in 2023 and only relinquished to Gawain Jones in a play off last year. I should have asked him what piece of music he would like to accompany this article, but as I didn't he'll have to make do with my choice. Looking at the results list it seems to me that there was indeed, from a KCC perspective, "too much blood on the page" (and also "on the Page!"), so I'll let The Gaslight Anthem play us out, in what is only their second ever appearance here.

Trophies Galore

At last week's Leamington League AGM it was raining, not men, but silverware and trophies on KCC. As well as 4 team awards, there were also 3 individual prizes. And just to prove it, here is a picture of them all together for what is probably the only time.

3 humans: (l-r) Andy Ward, Ben Graff, Mark Page
7 trophies: Back (l-r) Division 2, Division 1  Front (l-r) Best Game (Andy W), U8750 Cup, Open KO Cup, Blitz Champion (Javier), Blitz Intermediate (Keatan)

By the way, you can replay Andy's splendid prize winning game (as judged by National Master Don Mason) here. 

Now I bet you all thought you'd guessed what the song would be from the very first line of this report - and that was, indeed, my intention. But my super-new video list has now told me that I've used it before. So hurriedly I've had to go to Plan B. Very tenuous, but its the best I could come up with at short notice. It's got the word silver in, so that will have to do! (The alternatives were David Soul or David Essex who just don't cut it as far as I'm concerned!) Probably a bit too country for some of you, but we're here to cater for all tastes. The rock 'n roll will surely be back next time!

A nice rendition by Poco, but even better, in my opinion, is the original by Gram Parsons. But why don't you decide?

Never Mind the Chess - What About the Music??

As far as I can tell, the first music video to appear on the KCC website appeared on December 20, 2017. It was Tina Turner singing "We don't need another hero". But don't bother going back to try and find it, as the video has subsequently been deleted from YouTube, so no longer appears on our Blog. Little did I realise, when I first discovered how to embed videos into a web post, that the selection of music would become such a big part of the KCC Blog. My semi-scientific research (scrolling back for what seemed like ever through 7.5 years of posts) has revealed that there have in total been some 101 different artists featured across a total of 160 music videos.

You won't be surprised to learn that Bruce tops the table of most appearances. The Top 10 currently looks like this.

Bruce Springsteen        14*
Jackson Browne             9
Bob Dylan                      8
Little Feat                       5
The Kinks                       4
The Allman Brothers      3
Buffalo Springfield         3
The Byrds                       3
Mark Knopfler                3**

The Grateful Dead          3

* Plus 1 with Southside Johnny

** Plus 2 with Dire Straits

There are a further 14 artistes with 2 contributions, and 77 with a single appearance.

The Club Organiser has clearly been progressively losing his marbles, as several songs have appeared more than once by accident - though on a couple of occasions it has been done deliberately, most recently with Fairground Attraction's Perfect, in honour of a second 100% score by Javier at the LDCL Blitz Championships. Going Home, the theme from Local Hero, appeared 3 times in the same post (deliberately!) and Running on Empty by Jackson Browne has also featured 3 times though two of these have now disappeared, having been removed from YouTube. Now I have a list of all the videos, such accidental repetition shouldn't happen again. As long as I keep the list up to date, of course!

In my opinion the weirdest song to appear (so far!) was Charles Jolly's rendition of The Laughing Policeman, though if you want to hear it again you'll have to track it down yourselves as the Blog search function doesn't reference embedded videos. But also pretty weird was John Cage's 4'33" of absolute silence. Still, I prefer this to any of the contributions by Abba or Queen. Not my favourite groups!

Despite being of a certain age myself, I'm pleased to see that the Beatles and Rolling Stones have only managed one appearance each, with their combined score being beaten by both the Kinks and The Byrds, the two best 60's pop bands in my opinion.

But the most astonishing discovery I made going through the Blog's musical history is that one song - which should really have been the first ever - has never made an appearance. Until today. I could have included the live version recently witnessed by the Chairman and Club Organiser in Manchester, but that's an amateur production with very dodgy sound and this song deserves better. Much better. So wrap your ears around this. If its not the greatest rock song ever written, it must be pretty damn close! What a great way to start the second 160 KCC music videos.

We are the Champions! Open KO Cup!

Apologies for being a bit slow off the mark with a Cup Final report compared to Ben. But I've got here in the end, even if I have stolen his headline in the process.

And my goodness, what a performance I have to report. A fifth successive Open KO Cup for Kenilworth was secured on Tuesday (albeit spread over 7 years due to Covid!), when we beat Stratford 4.5-0.5 at Olton. This still leaves us some way behind Rugby's record 7 wins in a row, but as long as the run continues, there's always a chance we might get there! We have now won the Open KO Cup 11 times in total.

Having beaten Stratford A in our recent league match, we were bound to start favourites, as although we were missing Javier from that team, Captain Fantastic Andrew had managed to secure the services of Jude and Billy to make up for his absence. Not a bad trade, you'd have to say! What they lack in years they more than make up for in ability and rating! And as if that wasn't daunting enough, Stratford had the misfortune to be missing their top board, Ben Larkin, and to arrive with only 4 players. Consequently, all I had to do to claim the first point of the night was stay alive until 20.30, and thankfully I managed that.

The first real game to finish was on Board 2, where Jude overwhelmed David Gardner in what looked like a very convincing win - though he did confide in me afterwards that there was one moment where David could have made things considerably more difficult. But once this tactic was missed, Jude started collecting a lot of material and won quickly. Soon afterwards Andrew won against Richard Dobedoe on Board 5 to clinch the match. A Black bishop appeared on h5 attacking a White rook on f3, and unfortunately for Richard there was another White rook on d1, so he was just dropping an exchange. Rather than prolong the suffering he decided to resign on the spot.

Jude won too quickly for me to capture him in action! Billy, meanwhile, looks absolutely thrilled to be playing on Board 1

At which point I took this as my cue to depart for home, leaving Billy and Keatan both in action. Keatan's position against Alexander Roberts was looking rather ropey to me, as he was a pawn down without much/any compensation that I could see. But what do I know - not much later Nash messaged me to say that Keatan had drawn. In contrast, Billy, after a quiet opening with Black, had started to make inroads into Richard McNally's position on top board, posting a very dangerous looking bishop on e4 attacking a White king that was completely lacking any close pawn cover - the g pawn having disappeared and the f and h pawns having marched up the board. I don't know how Billy engineered the win, but it was no surprise to learn that he had found a way and wrapped up a very convincing win, which gave us our fourth consecutive Div 1/Open Cup double.

Keatan (top) thinking hard; The Invisible Man winning on Board 4; and Andrew getting ready to pounce on an upcoming oversight.

Our recent trophy record is getting to ridiculous proportions - it is now 17 trophies in the last 4 seasons with, I think, 15 of them coming in the Leamington League. Kenilworth may be the smallest place to have any teams in the League, but we can certainly punch above our weight! Which is a rather convoluted connection to our song of the week!

Congratulations to every one who played in our latest successful Cup campaign - 4.5-0.5 v Shirley; 5-0 (by default) against Coventry; and 4.5-0.5 against Stratford. 

We are the Champions! U8750 Cup!

 

The Winning Team: - (l-r) Dylan, Dan, Ben, Paul, Dhairya

In the beginning, there were five... This was more or less how I started a recent Chess Magazine article, which focussed on Frank Marshall. In Marshall's (historically dubious) telling of the story, there were originally five Grandmasters.  Just as the names of Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall will live forever in the chess world, future Kenilworth historians will doubtless want to acknowledge the efforts of Badger, Pandya, Graff, Davies and Bayliss in more or less the same breath.

We not only defended the U8750 Cup last night against Shirley, but also managed to do so having played the same team in every round. 

We started out with a 1-4 win away to Solihull on a cold January night. This had been followed by a nail-biting semi-final against Stratford in March, which we edged 2-3. Yesterday we were on the road again. All finals are at a neutral venue, and we lined up against Shirley in Olton.

 

The match was played in a really good spirit, with lots of friendships existing between the teams. As someone who plays for Shirley in the Birmingham League, I have reflected on the fact that the two biggest games of the season for the C and U8750 teams both came against the club (other than Kenilworth of course) that I most have a soft spot for and relationship with - but needs must. I'll get the drinks in when I attend the Shirley AGM!

I would love to be able to give a blow by blow account of all the games, but I can't, as my own battle was the last to finish. So I will share what I can... Things started exactly as they had last year, with me losing the toss. Dylan finished first with an excellent draw against Arnold Peace. It looked to have been very solid throughout. Last year Dylan was in the U1600 cup final team and his promotion and delivery at a higher level is testament to his progress. An excellent end to a great season.

Paul then went down on Board 1 against Darren Whitmore. It sounds like both players had their chances, and Darren is always a tough opponent. So a good struggle, but it meant that we were losing the match. I would like to thank Paul for all his efforts this season as he has been our key player on so many occasions, but this wasn't his night.

Dhairya rounded off his superb season by beating Keith Ingram on Board 2 to bring us level. We are so blessed with fantastic juniors and just like Dylan, Dhairya has grown and grown as the season has progressed. He really is a special talent. 

Dan has also been a revelation this year, and he did a great job of bringing the full point home against Kim Gilbert on Board 5. I am glad from a blood pressure perspective that I didn't see the end of this one, as Dan told me afterwards that he had been below 20 seconds at one point. But he got the job done, and Dan has been a major find for the club this year.

All of which meant that we were winning 2.5 - 1.5, but I needed to draw with Gordon Christie or we would lose on board count. I can't in all honesty say it was my best ever game. I wasn't happy with how I played the opening (although Fritz thinks it's OK) and I was certainly losing at one point. I dug deep and managed to completely turn the tables, not only beating back Gordon's attack but also picking up a pawn in the process. I seemed to be in full control, but it was Gordon's turn to play well. Fritz has highlighted that I did miss a win, but we were both below 3 minutes at that point, and even now I can see why a human would have played what I did, so I can't beat myself up too much. Ultimately we ended up knight and 3 (me) vs knight and 2 (Gordon) but all the pawns were on the same side of the board. I still had in my mind that I should win (because of the earlier position rather than what I had now, which Fritz scores as dead level), but clearly there was nothing doing. Even when Gordon offered me the draw I hesitated, but I certainly wouldn't have been happy if someone else turned down a  draw that would have won us the cup, so I took it. We were the U8750 Champions!

It's been a great team effort. Dan and Dhairya both scored 3/3 on our cup run. I also clocked in with 2.5/3, which is somewhat better than my contribution to last year's cup triumph when I lost in the semi-final and final. That's the beauty of chess, when things go wrong, there will always be another opportunity.

I'm so proud of our team, all of whom (along with others) also contributed to the C team success in the League. They say that it is better to travel than to arrive, and that's probably true, but let's enjoy the moment. I doubt we'll ever do a quadruple again, but next season will bring with it new opportunities and new adventures. So here's to that, and a bit of a holiday first, to contemplate all that we have delivered.

Stop Press: Kenilworth win Open and U8750 Cups, to complete historic quadruple!!

 Full match reports and details of the open-top bus parade through Kenilworth to follow...

Savour the moment. 

Division 1 Champions

Division 2 Champions

Open Cup Champions

U8750 Cup Champions

Get in!!

It's Deja Vu All Over Again, Again as KCC Dominate at the LDCL Blitz

Two years ago KCC managed a clean sweep of the podium at the annual LDCL Blitz Championship, as Javier led home myself and Bruce while posting a perfect 9/9 score. Last year our domination was slightly more muted, but Javier and Bruce still tied for the title, so it could hardly be called a failure. Jump forward to this year's event, held last night at Solihull, and it was almost as though we were back in 2023. Javier once again reeled off 9 successive wins to obliterate the field and I again followed at a respectable distance (7 pts), while this time round it was Keatan (6.5 pts) who completed the clean sweep. And Bruce (6 pts) then followed in 4th= place to make it an even more impressive night than 2 years ago. If Ben had won his last round he would also have finished 4th=, but as it was he had to settle for 9th= with 5 pts.

There were, unavoidably, plenty of intra-KCC encounters. Javier beat myself, Keatan and Bruce; I beat Bruce and Ben while losing to Keatan and Javier; Keatan beat me and Bruce but lost to Javi; Bruce beat Ben but lost to Javi, me and Keatan; and Ben did the decent thing and lost to me and Bruce!

32 players, but you'll have to make do with the top 23. 

As well as finishing third, Keatan also won the U-1800 prize (I know - what a bandit!) even though he should probably have been the number two seed. (This also kept this cup in KCC keeping, as Bernard won it last year!) Which meant that he got a cup to display and so, of course, did Javi, which left me looking like a bit left out in the post-event photo of the podium finishers!

They say blitz is a young person's game - so spot the outlier in this photo! Interestingly we finished in height order, but not in age order, which would have been my preferred sequence. As long as it was top down!

I wouldn't normally contemplate even for a moment repeating a musical selection here, but as its so apt I don't think I have much alternative. Indeed, this could well become an annual tradition the way things are going! So many congratulations to Javi on his third consecutive LDCL Blitz title. He was indeed just perfect.

Champions! We are going up!!!

 Last night saw our Division 2 showdown against Shirley B. We started the evening two points clear of Shirley, with a better (but not decisive) game point difference. Our task was clear. Win, draw or lose 1.5 - 2.5 and we would be champions. If Shirley won 3-1 or better, they would pip us to the post.

I had flown back from  the Menorca Open earlier in the day, somehow managing to miss all the power cut chaos in Spain. I did feel hopeful, as on paper I knew we had a great team. The thing with chess though is that you never know. We resolved to just play our games, but to keep a collective eye as to how the match was progressing. There is always a danger in overthinking these things.

The early play suggested that the night might not be entirely plain sailing. Dave seemed to be a fraction worse on Board 1 against Darren Whitmore, while Paul was really struggling against Owen Adams' Morra Gambit on Board 3. Yet Andy had a clear edge on Board 2 against Keith Ingram and my battle with Dave Thomas did not look like a game I was going to lose. So while not disastrous, the margins felt a little tight.

Time ticked on.

Andy led the way, picking up material and marching a pawn resolutely down the board. Meanwhile, I was a pawn up against Dave and with the better structure, but with opposite coloured bishops. Dave had turned down an early draw, yet when he offered me one now I hesitated. In normal circumstances I would have played it out, as it felt risk free (post-game analysis showed it was all a touch more complicated) but instead I waited and watched Andy's game while my clock ran down. 

Andy had crystalised his position and was a pawn up in a king and pawn endgame. It was impossible for Keith to defend on both sides of the board. I did not have enough time left on my clock for Andy to actually complete the win, but I was very confident that he would, so I took the draw.

A few minutes later Andy had won and we had the one and a half points that we needed to win the title! The evening got even better when Dave, who has done a fantastic job for us, exploited an error from Darren to give us victory in the match itself with a fine win.

Sadly Paul could not hold off Owen but it did not matter - Paul has won us plenty of other matches this season - and we had got the job done!

We had a drink with the Shirley players (including Gordon and Arnold who had been very welcome spectators) in the bar afterwards to collectively reflect on a season now done. Ultimately we had won the title by four points, having beaten Shirley in both our individual matches, and also held off the season long challenge from Coventry.

Next year will bring us an opportunity in Division 1 - we have earnt the chance to show what we can do. These are such exciting times for Kenilworth and truly a golden age for our teams.

A huge thank you to all who have played for the team this season. We've used 12 players and everyone has made a contribution at crucial moments. Our final stats for the year are...

Paul 6/11

Andy 5/11

Ben 7.5/10

Harry 5/8

Dave 3.5/ 5

Rhys 2.5/5

Bernard 2/3

Michal 2/3

Dhairya 2/2

Mike 1.5/2

Dan 1/1

Dylan 1/1

Here's to next season - albeit some of us will be trying to add cup glory to our League success before May is out!

Stop Press: Kenilworth C Division 2 Champions and Promoted to Division 1!

Our 2.5 - 1.5 victory against Shirley tonight means that we've done it!!! Full report to follow in due course...

Game of the Month - April 2025 (#2!)

Well, this is a first. Two Games of the Month in the same month, when we're typically lucky to get two in a year. But what can you do when one's inbox over-floweth with splendid offerings?

One of the big plusses for the club this season, when people were dropping like flies or heading for the hills, was the return to regular action of Andy Ward. While this further complicates matters by having 3 Andrews/Andys to differentiate, its a small price to play for the return of a strong player who has played a massive part in the C team's promotion challenge. Our game, though, somes from a recent Division 1 match against Olton A, when a somewhat under-strength Kenilworth B managed to win despite only turning up with 3 players! This was one of the decisive games that saw us overcome our numerical deficiency and secure a third place league position. Not quite matching last season's 2nd place finish for the B team, but probably an even better effort in view of our loss of players for much of the season. I don't suppose those of us in the A team will ever be allowed to forget that we managed to score just a single match point against the B team this season, and suffered our biggest drubbing (0.5-3.5) for many a year in the first encounter.

But back to the Game of the Month, and here - with Andy's own comments - is Andy's excellent victory over Richard Liszewski, who must be sick of the sight of Kenilworth players, having also lost to Bruce and myself earlier in the season. Here Black gets slowly strangled as Andy takes full advantage of some rather passive play by Richard, which ends up with Black having the worst pair of rooks you could ever see, and his light squared bishop is not much better. At the end, Andy is only a pawn up, but the Black rooks and king are so badly placed that it is impossible to avoid massive material loss. This was a very smooth and well controlled game by Andy. Black never seemed to have a chance!

Kids and Caissa to the Rescue

Sometimes it all comes down to luck. We naturally tend to think we get more bad luck than good, but that doesn't mean it always has to be like that. As Thursday night at Solihull proved. The task ahead of us was quite simple - win and Kenilworth A would clinch a fifth consecutive Division 1 title. But drop a point or, heaven forbid, two and we would likely be overtaken by Banbury A. Despite missing both Jude and Javier our super-sub captain had managed to assemble a pretty good team, and with Solihull missing regular Board 1 Don Mason (get well soon, Don) we looked in good shape to get the 2.5 game points we needed. But while our youthful boards 1 and 2, Billy (on his A team Board 1 debut) and Keatan, did exactly what was needed and scored good wins over Ray Carpenter and Julian Summerfield respectively, the more mature members of the team had a torrid time of things. It looked like they could not handle the pressure. Cue song number 1!

Andrew lost an important pawn on c6 right out of the opening against Solihull's own junior star, Akshath Shivakumar and faced a long and decidedly uphill struggle to get anything out of the game from a very early stage. I was sat next to him playing Tony Sadler and after a rope-a-dope opening Tony hit out at my big pawn centre with an f5 break. It got quite exciting and very good for me, especially when I jumped into f6 with a knight. But the very next move I overlooked a move that sent my queen away from defending the advanced knight and suddenly it just dropped off the board and I was completely lost. Andrew, meanwhile, had staged a bit of a rearguard action  and was desperately trying to hold on in a rook ending a pawn down. Thankfully Billy and Keatan had by now already won after very efficient and powerful games so we just needed half a point from the two old codgers on the bottom two boards to get over the line. But could we get it?

The answer, amazingly, was yes! Because Caissa, the goddess of chess, rather fortunately for us had decided to fly over Solihull on this particular night and - even more fortuitously - drop down a scattering of lucky dust that by total chance landed on me. Blessed by this good fortune it was indeed the case that we could do the impossible! Cue song number 2.

In a truly desperate position I sacked a rook to open up the Black king but it shouldn't have worked. But after just a couple of moves Tony managed to completely overlook my one move threat of mate and we had got our third crucial game point and the title was won. Just as well, since Andrew's defensive efforts ultimately came up short, giving Akshath his second win on successive nights against Kenilworth teams.

I felt completely exhausted by the events of the evening and not a little embarrassed by my disastrous blunder which turned a +4 position into -4. Thank goodness for Caissa's intervention.  And thank goodness for our two juniors. I think we can all agree that as far as KCC is concerned, the kids are alright! Cue song number 3.

At some stage I'll check the history books and see if any club before us has also managed 5 consecutive Division 1 titles - so far I've discovered one example of 4 by Leamington (1965-68), but I need to unearth the records for the years since 1996 to see whether either Stratford or Olton, who both enjoyed periods of some dominance, managed to equal or improve on this. Fingers crossed that we are the first!

Flash Report - Kenilworth win Division 1 title for a fifth consecutive season!

But my goodness, it was a close run thing. We somehow beat Solihull 3-1 tonight, but for around half an hour or so it looked likely to be a 2-2 draw, which would have opened the door for Banbury to overtake us by winning their remaining fixture. But from a completely lost position, I somehow jumped out to mate Tony Sadler and score our crucial third point - Billy and Keatan having already won far more convincingly and efficiently on Boards 1 and 2.

A fuller report to follow when I have recovered from tonight's anxiety and stress. Which will probably take until Saturday at the earliest!

But well done to everyone who contributed to this triumph, which was achieved in far more difficult circumstances than we expected. And especial thanks and congratulations to Andrew for stepping in to captain the A team in our hour of need when I had to step aside. Phew!

Victories on the Road

 It has been a really good week for the B and C teams, with victories on successive nights, away to Olton A and Solihull B respectively. I could write a book about how we ended up with the exact line-ups that turned out, but instead I'll just note that captaincy can sometimes involve more work than is immediately obvious! 

Even so, when we arrived in Olton, Rob Reynolds very affably asked me "where are all your players?" His question was both metaphorical and literal. We only had one B team regular (Keatan) and only three players in the building in total (myself and Andy making up the trio.) Unbeknownst to us, Mike's car had broken down and he wasn't going to make it.

So we clearly did not start the game as favourites, but ultimately brought home an excellent 2.5 - 1.5 victory, with a couple of fantastic games along the way (sadly neither of which was mine.) I was the first to finish on Board 4 against Richard Reynolds. As usually happens in our encounters, it was quite drawish throughout. We played down to an endgame, but it always looked like a point that was going to be split.

I would strongly encourage Andy and Keatan to both send their efforts to Mark, for publication in "Game of the Month," as both made for a terrific watch. On Board 3, Andy gave a master class against Richard Liszewski, completely dominating the files with his queens and rooks, and slowly squeezing Richard's forces with exquisite, risk free accuracy. It really was high-class stuff, and this pulled us back to 1.5 - 1.5.

On Board 1, Keatan unleashed a fantastic knight sacrifice against Alan Lloyd, which left Alan completely floored. It was very complicated, with many lines that needed calculating, but Keatan had it more than covered. Faced with Hobson's choice, Alan took the knight and was immediately lost. Hugely impressive on Keatan's part! 

That we had won in such circumstances underscored the strength and depth of the B team this year. We have now concluded our campaign as officially the third best team in the competition, which is something we can all be very proud of.

Yet my focus all week (and indeed over the last few months) was on the C team and our Division 2 promotion battle. We went into last night's match top of the table, level on points with Shirley B, but with a game in hand. Up against bottom of the table Solihull, this was our chance to put ourselves two points clear, prior to our final game showdown against Shirley. 

Andy was evenly matched ratings wise with Akshath Shivakumar on Board 1, but we had a big ratings advantage on all the other boards. Yet we were determined not to be complacent. We've all seen disasters happen. But this ended up being a reasonably comfortable evening.

Rhys was the first to finish on Board 3, at around 9.00 against Matthew Allen. I didn't see much of this one. It looked like a case of a very smooth workout for Rhys, who did a great job in putting us 1-0 up in pretty routine fashion.

On Board 4, I was playing Pavan Gowda, who threw the kitchen sink at me more or less from his first move. I always felt that his attack was premature. Ultimately, he took some space, but I had the better structure and the better development, and once I was ready to prise things open with a pawn lever, I was absolutely in the ascendency. I won a pawn and then a piece. Pavan had one last attempt to prise my king open but it wasn't sound. I pocketed a rook and was on the brink of winning the queen too, when Pavan called it quits. This was certainly a game when I was always in control, but it was complicated and engaging (and as per usual I got myself in a bit of time trouble, but no matter.) So 2-0

Paul finished next on Board 2, with what might be another contender for Game of the Month. Up against Paul Silverman, our Paul rolled his pawns to brilliant effect, absolutely gripping the board. The final position was very pretty. The pawns controlled everything and Paul S could not prevent Paul B from queening/ winning by some other means. Paul told me afterwards that it had been very enjoyable to play and it certainly looked that way. So 3-0!!

Unfortunately, Andy's game was a painful one. At one point it looked like he was going to win to make it 4-0, but unfortunately something went wrong, and he lost. Not his night, but Andy has been the hero for us on so many occasions, and in the context of the match it did not matter.

So, we host Shirley on Monday week. We are two points ahead and have a superior game point difference, which means Shirley would need to win heavily to overtake us. That said, we aren't going to worry about the maths. We'll just do what we've done all season, and take the game as it comes. Fingers crossed!

Playing in the Dark

Not sure if we should blame Putin, Ben (well he does work for National Grid!) or sabotage by a rival club, but there were no less than 4 power cuts during the A team's match last night away against Stratford A. But as my wife also experienced 4 power cuts while dining at the Ferry at Alveston, on the other side of Stratford, it looks like the finger is pointing decisively in Ben's direction!

On the first occasion it was still light enough for the games to continue (though only 3, as Javier and Ben Larkin had already agreed a draw in about 5 minutes) but on incidents 2, 3 and 4 we had to stop the clocks (though it was difficult to find the pause button in the dark!) and twiddle our thumbs for a minute or so till the lights came back on.

Thankfully, when they did the remaining three KCC combatants turned up the heat and hoovered up all the available points to secure a 3.5-0.5 win, which returned us to the top of the table, on game points. One match left for both ourselves and Banbury A, but a win for us against Solihull next week will ensure we retain the title.

Andrew chalked up our first win after a strange game against Alexander Roberts in which he didn't seem to do anything ...... except accumulate a healthy surplus of pawns. Wish I could win as painlessly as that. Because I was Black against Richard McNally, and Richard was in full kitchen sink mode. He sacked a pawn and then a piece right out of the opening, but it looked totally unsound to me - although the dreaded engine says it was not too bad. But luckily for me, Richard played the line I had analysed instead of Mr Stockfish's improvement, and I was left an exchange up. Once the queens came off I was winning easily as my rooks took over the board. The end came when Richard blundered into a back rank mate.

Which left Keatan in play against Richard Dobedoe. It was a hard fight, but eventually Keatan won a pawn and in the ensuing rook and opposite bishop ending he was able to annex most of White's pawns while promoting one of his own to win the White bishop.

We've already had one song this week, but the first was just a throw away item by my standards. So how could I resist adding this one? After all, its not every match that you end up Playing in the Dark! This is a great version, though yoiu do have to settle for Bruce dancing with his mum and sister rather than Courteney Cox as in the original video.

Stand In Stars

Should future chess historians ever decide to put together a Kenilworth club quiz, asking which enthusiastic member managed to captain the D, C and B teams in a six-day period, might be a good starter question. Albeit I’m guessing that keen students of this period, would probably correctly hazard a guess that it was me.You have already seen the write up of the D team encounter against Leamington B. I am going to draw a veil over Kenilworth B’s attempt to hold off Banbury A, suffice to say the night was about as cheering as the 3.5 – 0.5 Banbury victory suggests.

Yet in many ways, it was the Monday night battle between Kenilworth C and (again) Leamington B that was the most crucial. Coventry had slipped up last time out, which meant with three games to go (before this match) the promotion quest (and of course the Division 2 title) were back in our own hands.

It was our Board 4 stand in, Dylan, who proved to be the star of the show. Up against Alex (who is over 1700), Dylan played a fantastic game, building up a great attack in a really controlled way. It was one of those positions where I didn’t have to calculate anything to be pretty sure that Dylan was going to win. Ultimately Dylan took the very sensible decision to cash out his attack for a big material advantage and soon afterwards the point was ours. Undoubtedly Dylan’s best night as a Kenilworth player – and we are very grateful to him for stepping up.

The remaining three games were all very tense, but Dylan’s win seemed to settle our nerves a bit. I was playing Tom Cockell on Board 3 and was the next to finish, after a game I would rather forget. Up against 1.b4 and Tom’s deep understanding of the system, I played the opening very poorly and found myself in a very difficult position having made various mistakes along the way. A pawn down, I managed to turn the tables with a fork which gave an ending of rook and three (me) vs knight and four (Tom). My rook dominated the f file, cutting Tom’s king off from the action, while my king made the slow walk into white’s position. As per usual I hadn’t helped myself by having to play the whole ending on vapours time wise, but eventually I got my king where I wanted it. Faced with either losing his remaining pawns or being mated in the corner, Tom resigned. Not my finest hour, but I’d dug myself out and we were 2-0 up!

Boards 1 and 2 both went to the brink. Paul was playing Chris Ward on Board 2 and seemed to have marginally the better of a rook and pawn ending but it still looked drawn. Paul offered a draw when both players were below a minute on their clocks, which was turned down. My heart was in my mouth a bit as anything can happen in such circumstances, but a draw was agreed soon afterwards, so we had done it!

All of which meant that Dave’s game against Joshua Simpson was no longer key to the match, but it was still a fascinating tussle. Dave pressed all night and was a pawn up in another rook and pawn ending. However, his structure wasn’t perfect, and Joshua had a passed pawn of his own that needed to be carefully watched. So, a draw felt like a fair result – and both players deserve credit for a really good game.

Our win ended Leamington B’s faint hopes of winning the Division themselves. We are four points clear of Coventry A and Shirley B, with 2 games left to play (with Coventry and Shirley having 3 games left, albeit one of which is against each other.) Our final two games are away to Solihull and at home against Shirley. A win and a draw from these encounters would guarantee the title. We’ll keep our feet on the ground and just take them one game at a time.

Game of the Month - April 2025

I'm as surprised as you, but its time for another Game of the Month article. These generally come around with as similar frequency to Halley's Comet, as it takes something special to prompt me into action. and we have something special here as it features a splendid win by Dan, playing for Kenilworth D in a recent Division 2 match against Leamington B. Dan has been in splendid form for the club this season, which is essentially his first playing league chess in the Northern Hemisphere! So far he has scored a very impressive 9.5/13 across his D, E and U8750 Cup appearances, and has also found the time to play quite a few games for Coventry in the Coventry League. (For which we forgive him!)

The Game of the Month sees Dan despatching the much higher rated (+281 points) Chris Ward (but no, not the English GM of the same name!) in impressive fashion. Chris goes into the record books as the highest rated player that Dan has beaten in an over the board standard play game - at least for now! We can reliably expect even better things to come from Dan in the future. The game features what must be one of the queickest wins of a queen I have ever seen, followed by a suitably violent and brutal king hunt that drives the White king up the board, where it perishes when faced with the choice of being mated on a4 or a6.



A splendid game by Dan which deserves to be accompanied by a song. Something Antipodean is called for, I think. And they don't come more Antipodean than this!

Every Cloud

You can tell when spring is approaching. The air is a little less sharp. Glinting yellow daffodils cover the ground. And of course, as always, our annual battle to keep as many of our players eligible as possible, is inevitably lost. (Don't worry, I wasn't planning on going all Wordsworthesq on this blog!) 

Still, eligibility challenges always create opportunities for others, and while the D team narrowly lost to the much higher rated Leamington B last night, it was a good effort all round.

Dan has been a revelation this season. He was conceding 300 points to Chris Ward on Board 2, but you would never have known this to watch. Dan set himself up well, and had a few early attacks on Chris's queen. All perfectly logical, developing moves, that should have been easily dealt with by Chris. It occurred to me that Chris had the potential to get his queen completely trapped. I barely had time to think "surely he won't," when this was replaced by the thought "Oh, he has." Chris could have resigned on the spot, but elected to play it out. Dan did everything right, playing very calmly and comfortably and the victory was inevitable. An impressive performance and 1-0 to us.

I didn't see much of Patrick's game, but unfortunately he was the next to finish on Board 3 with a loss, to make it 1-1. My game against Joshua Simpson on Board 1 was extremely interesting. There were a lot of middle game tactics, and I ended up with a rook and two vs bishop and four. With a few more pawns I'm sure it would have been a win for me, but as it was, Joshua's connected pawns were very tricky to deal with. We played to close to the wire, at which point it was clear I had a total blockade. Joshua couldn't make any progress, but neither could I. So a draw felt fair, and that made it 1.5 - 1.5.

Deema's game against Alex Kagkalis on Board 4 was highly entertaining. Frankly the time scramble could have gone either way, and there is some work to do on the LDCL rules concerning illegal moves which I will look to take forward. It was very messy. However, on the night, Alex just edged it at the death - but Deema had put up a brilliant effort. I could definitely see her playing chess on television!

So not quite our night, but Dan, Patrick and Deema are all growing as players - as we look to bring through our next generation of talent. Moreover, take a look at the other Division 2 results last night... They absolutely went the way the C team would have hoped. All of which makes Monday's C team game (by chance also against Leamington B) a really big one. The Division 2 promotion chase is well and truly back in our own hands...

We're in the Final!

Having used the word "pain," in successive Blog titles, I am delighted to be able to write a more cheering header today! We managed to win last night's U8750 semi-final against Stratford, albeit by the skin of our teeth. So, this will be the third season in a row when both the U8750 and the Open team are involved on finals night, as we seek an unprecedented "double-double." Another milestone for the club history books!

Dhairya put up the most convincing display, making relatively short work of Aiden Keavy on Board 2. I didn't see a lot of it, but it was clear from very early on that Dhairya was overwhelmingly better on the board, and his swift conversion came as no surprise. Another terrific performance from one of our players of the season.

Dylan was the next to finish against Oliver Gray on Board 4, but it sadly just wasn't Dylan's night. Somehow Oliver seemed to find a way to fully permeate deep into Dylan's position and it looked very difficult to find a meaningful defence. Dylan gave it a good go, but not to be. There will be better nights ahead I am sure.

Paul then went down on Board 1 against Alexander Roberts. Paul's game was being played in the corner of a packed room, and as a result I did not see a single move of it. Paul told me afterwards that Alexander had played really well, and it sounded like a good tussle.

So we were 1-2 down. I was slightly better on Board 3 and Dan's position looked very unclear to me on Board 5 and we had no margin for error...

I found my defeat on Monday night very painful, but the reality is that we all lose to weaker players from time to time. All you can do is dust yourself off and try and do better in the next one. I'll still look back at this as a week when I wasn't at my best, but the cup game has certainly made me feel a bit better. I was somewhat sluggish out of the opening against Oliver Budd. A lot of material came off, and we ended up in a heavy piece late middle game, with a queen and two rooks each, which did not abound with winning chances. However, I was a little bit more active, and had potentially the more threatening pawn breaks. I was also the player who was pushing harder to make something of it. 

I got into time trouble as per usual, and saw parallels with the previous night when I'd over pressed and gone wrong. But my current theory is that if you play positively, it might not always work, but the percentages are likely to favour you over the longer term. After extensive manoeuvring (of which I was quite proud) I set the pawn break up very nicely and was threatening to crash through on the kingside. I threw in a decoy tactic, which meant that if Oliver played the most logical move to block the pawn break, I'd spring a very nice trap and pick up a lot of wood. Oliver missed the tactic, and I won a rook for a pawn. Looking back at the moves now, it all looks pretty straightforward from this point on, but it was a bit nerve-wracking in the moment as I had so little time. Eventually I got the queens off, and then his rook. Oliver's pawns weren't fast enough to take on my remaining rook. So we were back to 2-2!

A big crowd gathered to watch the crucial Board 5 game between Dan and Peter Stiff. Material was level, but it was a messy position. Dan's structure was a bit compromised and he had an advanced isolated pawn that needed a fair bit of looking after. He was also very short of time. These endgame positions are very hard to play if you are not a GM, and to be fair to Peter, he did come up with some nice moves but just wasn't quite accurate enough. Also credit to Peter for turning down a draw as Stratford needed to win the game, while we only needed a draw. 

Eventually, Dan managed to find a way to get his pawn chain working very effectively, and his pawns sprang into life on the queenside in a way that suddenly made them look a lot more menacing than Peter's passed central pawn. Some nice tactics followed, as Peter was forced to round up Dan's queenside pawns, which left the kingside at Dan's mercy as his doubled g pawns transformed from a weakness to an unstoppable force. A really great result - Dan's fighting qualities and his skill had got us into the final!

Details are yet to be confirmed, but it will certainly be a night to look forward to.

Fairly Brutal

March 17th was a busy night for the club, with three teams in action. Ben has already written about the C team's win away at Rugby, while we had a double header at the Abbey Club, with the A team playing Shirley A and the E team Shirley D. It was honours even (2-2) in the Division 3 encounter - where congratulations are due to debutant Phil Dean for securing our only win - but in the Division 1 match up, the A team dealt fairly brutally with Shirley A, finishing with a 3.5-0.5 win, which for much of the night looked sure to be 4-0. This returned us to the top of the table on game points and kept our opponents rooted to the foot of the table and facing relegation - which would have already been confirmed but for Joshua's now infamous board order blunder that converted a 3.5-0.5 win for our B team into a 0-4 loss. Shirly A now have only one match left to save themselves, against fellow strugglers Stratford A, with whom they are equal on points but with 3 more matches played. Should be quite a tense encounter between the two teams on March 31st, when nothing less than a Shirley win will give them any chance of avoiding the drop!

Last night, though, we were not in the mood for being charitable to our guests, and from quite early on it was a race to see who would win first. For all the world it looked like it would be Javier on Board 2, who took a gambitted pawn in the opening and completely dominated the game thereafter. But Jonathan Dale is never one to resign early and here he continued up to and beyond Javier queening a pawn. This delayed proceedings sufficiently for Jude to win the race to the finish line, after a really excellent game against Phil Purcell on Board 1. He seemed to play really precisely against Phil's London (yawn) set up, ending up in a completely dominant rook and bishop v rook and knight ending where several of White's pawns proved indefensible. A really convincing win against a strong opponent. 

I'm pretty sure that I played less moves than either Jude or Javier, but I was still only able to claim the bronze position on the podium after beating Gordon Christie. I ganged up on and won an advanced White e pawn in the opening and when Gordon made a two tempi losing move in the middle game I had a combo to win 2 pieces for a rook, which not long after became an extra piece. 

Which left our skipper Andrew in play on Board 4 against Dave Thomas. Every time I glanced over at the game, I was sure Andrew was about to win a piece, as Dave had an errant knight which was hopping about on c3 and b5, defended mainly by a queen on a5. Somehow, though, the knight proved to be uncatchable and the game eventually went into a rook and bishops of the same colour ending. Even when all the pawns got exchanged on the queenside and it was only 3 v 3 on the kingside White seemed to have chances, as the Black king was very uncomfortably placed on h6. But with only rooks on it was impossible for the White king to avoid checks and the position was drawn. Good defence by Dave, but it was a mighty close run thing.

Its lucky dip time on the music front this week. (Which means I can't think of anything even remotely connected to the title or theme of this report!) It might be 12 years old, but it still qualifies as modern by my standards!

Winning Pains

 Having picked up only one point from the last six on offer, the promotion chasing C team knew we badly needed a win last night, away to Rugby A. We got it, but I will keep this write-up brief. Rugby defaulted a board (thankfully telling us in advance and thus saving Dhairya and Sagar a trip.) So 1-0 to us before a piece had been moved.

We were very grateful to Harry for turning out on Board 2. He seemed to drop the exchange against Dave Riley, but even so had too much quality and brought home the full point. Paul played out a solid draw on Board 1 against Mark Gilbert, to secure both match points.

Many hours later, my absolute determination not to draw with James Peel saw my wishes granted when I screwed up in the time scramble and missed a tactic. Excruciating - it's about a year since I last messed up on such a colossal scale, but credit to James. Part of me thinks this is the occasional price for always playing to win, part of me would prefer not to think about it at all. (I am not finding writing any of this particularly cathartic - too soon I guess...)

Ultimately as a team we did what we needed to do and are now three points clear at the top of the table. All eyes will be metaphorically on Coventry when they play on Thursday. The classic question as to what is worth more - games in hand or points on the board. Time will tell.

The cup team are in action against Stratford tonight, so hopefully I'll be in a cheerier mood after that, but as we all know - nothing in chess is ever guaranteed.

Either way, now this report is written, I would be grateful if this match could never be spoken of again.

Pain On The Road

 Kenilworth C wrapped up what has been a disappointing week for the club, with a narrow defeat away to Banbury B last night. On paper we probably had the edge, but that counted for little when the action got underway.

Andy got us off to a decent start, with a very solid draw against Nathan Manley on Board 1. If this game was relatively sedate, it is fair to say that the other three were anything but... Paul and Michal both seemed to be losing (against Mal Waddell and Francesco Poderico respectively). Meanwhile, I was winning, but battling against the clock and some resolute defending on the part of Nick Martin.

Eventually Michal seemed to stabilise proceedings on Board 3, and I had some hope that he might scrape a draw, but the improving Francesco held his nerve to put us 0.5 - 1.5 down going into the final 10 minutes of the match.

At this point I had two minutes on my clock to Nick's eight. After two and a half hours of having the better position I still did, but I was continuing to struggle to find the decisive blow. Nick offered me a draw and I was tempted, especially as I suspected Paul was going to lose. But, this is the new look positive me (to a point!) so I decided to play on. GM Ben Finegold once said that the secret to chess is to play as if you never want the game to end, and there must be something in that. Yet it was ultimately a Garry Kasparov observation that most resonated. Namely, that it is easier to attack than it is to defend, and if a defender has to continually find saving moves the pressure often tells eventually. So it was here. The difference on our clocks diminished rapidly, and Nick finally missed a defence which enabled me to break through - and sportingly Nick allowed me to play a nice finish through to checkmate.

Yet while this was a decent effort for me personally, sadly it wasn't enough. Paul's game had been completely wild from the opening salvos. Frankly I had no idea what was going on (beyond thinking that I much preferred Mal's position, which was the correct assessment.) Paul ended up two pawns down in an endgame, and Mal converted comfortably enough. So 1.5 - 2.5. 

Unfortunately, this means that the promotion chase is no longer in our own hands. Yet perhaps the great thing about chess is that however badly a game or a match goes, a shot at redemption is never very far away. The C team are in action against Rugby next week, and we also have a big U8750 semi final, as we continue our defence of that title.  Looking further ahead there are still a handful of  League games left, so it's all to play for. We'll dust ourselves off and go again... 

Golden Ace Wins at Cheltenham - KCC Blow Golden Opportunity at Coventry

Yesterday the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham produced a shock result - the starting prices of the first three horses were 25/1 (Golden Ace); 66/1 (Burdett Road) and 150/1 (Winter Fog).

And yesterday evening, the Coventry League KO Cup Final saw a shock that was arguably bigger still, when Division 2 Rugby A, who I would have made at least 10/1 outsiders in a 2 horse race, managed to hold off the might of KCC to lift the cup. Sure, we won the match 2.5-1.5, but Rugby had a 1.25 points handicap advantage, so they ended up edging us out by 2.75-2.5. Full credit to them, but this was an open goal - of Ronny Rosenthal proportions -  missed by us.

Our rating advantage, by board, was 319, 417, 337 and 409, but on the evidence of this match, you need at least 410 points in hand to be sure of winning, and I was the only one on the right side of that thresh-hold!

Things started to go wrong when Mike bailed out on Board 3 with a timely draw offer against Martin Wilson - as he was a pawn down; miles behind on the clock and probably losing, this was a wise decision, and thankfully Martin was happy to take the half point. But it already reduced our margin for error, as we needed to score at least 3 points to overcome Rugby's handicap advantage. So we could have two small accidents, or one big accident and still win - and surely with such enormous rating disparities on all boards we could score 2.5 out of the remaining 3 matches?

Well, next to finish was me, with what - quite improbably - turned out to be our only win of the evening. Dave Riley sacked a pawn in the opening as Black to double the pawns in front of my king, but there was very little play for the material, and I soon annexed a second pawn, then a piece, then a third pawn and when I threatened mate and it could only be averted by giving up a queen, Dave had to resign.

But now that I had time to look at the positions in the remaining two games I started to get a bit nervous, as it wasn't obvious where our second win was coming from. Keatan was trying to push on top board against Mark Gilbert, but Paul seemed to be clearly worse against Leslie Williams on bottom board, with rook and knight against rook and bishop, with plenty of pawns. It looked like Paul's opponent could have forced a draw by repetition to me, but instead he went for a convoluted manoeuvre that saw his rook mysteriously end up on h8. So some hope for us yet. But then I glanced back at Keatan's game to discover that, short of time, he had dropped two pieces for a rook and things looked distinctly bleak here. But Keatan, in his typical fashion, gritted his teeth and dug in to get a draw - though he may well have been losing in the final position.

However, it ended up not mattering, as Paul's position had not improved - and in fact had seemingly become dead lost! He'd dropped a pawn somewhere along the way and ended up with a lone rook against Black's rook and g pawn. But Paul's king was cut off, and the Black king was in front of the pawn safe from any checks. And then the gods cruelly intervened and Black - with plenty of time - simply unprotected his last pawn and Paul was saved from defeat. But a third draw of the night meant we weren't!

So no Coventry League silverware for KCC this season, when the opportunities were right there in front of us to do the double. But thanks to a major cock-up in a league match against Coventry by me and this cup catastrophe (not guilty, m'lud!) we ended up empty handed instead. My sombre mood demands some suitably soulful music. And you can't get much more soulful than this epic blues rendition by the Allman Brothers. "They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday's just as bad!" In fact it was even worse!! 

A Point Well Made

 We are at the stage of the season where selection is becoming something of a challenge for the D team. Paul and Rhys are no longer eligible. Going into last night's game against Olton, Bernard was also away. We then lost Dhairya in the days before the game. All of which meant that our line up had something of a patched up look to it. A bit akin to an injury hit Premier League team on the final stretch. Given the challenging circumstances, I could not be more proud of our players, who secured an excellent 2-2 draw and a very helpful League point.

Dylan got us off to a great start on Board 2 against Rob Reynolds. This is the highest Dylan has ever played for the team and he looked completely at home. I thought Rob was possibly a little better when he offered a draw and Dylan did exactly the right thing in accepting it. Another very promising step in Dylan's development as he continues to make great strides in his chess.

Patrick was a last minute call up on Board 4, for his first D team game of the season, and we are very grateful for his efforts. He always looked very comfortable against the higher rated Warren Archibold and another draw ensued.  It really speaks to our strength and depth as a club and a great night's work on Patrick's part.

Dan played the game of the night on Board 3 against Richard Evans. I did not see all of it, but Dan just seemed to build up a very powerful attack, which ultimately culminated in the threat of a forced smothered mate. A very nice finish to put as 2-1 up, as Dan's excellent season continues.

All of which left me on Board 1 against Mike Hollier. I was worse out of the opening. Then I was winning. Stupidly I got over optimistic and unwisely snatched a pawn. I think a product of feeling like I deserved something from the superior position, but unfortunately it was a poor decision. We ended up playing to the last few seconds and I did think I might hold it, but I'd given myself too much to do. So back down to earth with a bump after my weekend exploits. It was ever thus...

Still - a very good result for the team in the circumstances. Well done to Dan, Dylan and Patrick for a really good effort.

Every Dog...

 All chess players think about why they play and what they want from the game. For most of us, our relationship with the sixty-four squares is double-edged. Who wouldn't want to be a little better or to win a bit more regularly? We all know that the pain of losing hurts more than the positive buzz that comes when we win. All too often chess is a game of disappointment or coming up just short - and that is the price we have to pay for playing. 

I am sure my biggest critic would not dispute what chess means to me. I've made so many friends, had lots of wonderful experiences and much of what I have done as a writer in terms of my books and articles is closely bound up with the chess world. Yet the gap between being the player I am and the player I want to be has been a challenge at times. Especially at a club like Kenilworth. On the one hand, I see and delight in seeing so much world class talent coming through our ranks. On the other, this accentuates my sense that I'll only ever be a journeyman. Someone who is capable of beating better players (and losing to weaker ones) but rarely consistent enough to suggest I am going to make much progress.

Indeed after a terrible season a couple of years ago I was at a very low ebb. Thanks to Paul Lam's help, I have improved my chess psychology, my opening repertoire and how I prepare. Essentially I now spend more time looking at my own games, do more tactical puzzles, and play a little less online blitz. All of which has helped me have a pretty reasonable season. Yet in the many years I've played prior to yesterday, my sum total of tournament victories (outside the LDCL Individual KOs) consisted of a junior open victory, an LDCL rapidplay major win and a share of first place at a Shropshire major (with Ed Goodwin as I recall). Not a great return on the zillions of tournaments I have played in. 

It is true of course that I don't enter tournaments because I expect to win. If that was the case I would have stopped playing chess years ago. But it is nice to think that sometimes it might be your day - and most unexpectedly for me that day turned out to be yesterday, as I ended up the joint winner of the Open section of the Swindon Rapidplay!

I had set off with some hope, as I was down as the number 1 seed in the U1900, but arrived to find that the Open and U1900 had been merged. I said to Mrs G "there goes that then," but she said "just try and win the Open instead," so I did!

I started with two routine wins before a bit of heartbreak in round 3 against Ben Ogunshola (the number 1 seed and tournament organiser who is in the photo). I unbelievably managed to throw away a won position at the death in the time scramble. This has become a bit of a habit of late, especially as in round 5 I did the same thing, but this time managed to cling on for the draw. I just tell myself that like a striker who doesn't always score from good positions, the fact that I am consistently getting into them must mean something...     

So I was on 3.5/5 going into the final round. A point behind the tournament leader and talented England junior Zack Norris (2058) who had just downed the slightly misfiring and out of the money tournament IM Petr Marusenko. I knew that a win would guarantee me a share of second, and would be good for a share of first so long as Ben Ogunshola did not win his final game (which he didn't!)

I think previously I would have been a bit overwhelmed. Zack is obviously the stronger player. But I resolved just to play. Twenty moves in, I could not help but think to myself, this looks pretty good. Still, given I knew I wasn't always holding onto my good positions, I did not take anything for granted. I found a nice tactic and won a piece for two pawns. A wildly complicated middle game ensued, but I was better co-ordinated and could see that Zack was very unhappy with his position. Eventually I forced another tactic and won Zack's queen for rook. A lot more moves followed, but by this point I knew I'd got this!

So a £100 prize and a trophy (to say nothing of a TPR of 2002!) Ben said to me afterwards that I looked happier than any of the kids. I'm sure that was true. They haven't suffered like I have. Mrs G says it is not sufficient to suggest I should pack it all in and go professional, and we are still negotiating as to whether the trophy can be displayed in the sitting room. In all seriousness I doubt that this is going to be the start of me winning lots more tournaments. But it was a very nice feeling, which I will always remember. Every dog and all that!

I Guess it Doesn't Matter Anymore

Or at least so I thought before during and immediately after our final Coventry League match of the season against Warwick Uni B last night. Until Paul told me that if Warwick Uni A had lost against Nuneaton A in their final match, we could have overtaken them and won the Division 1 title for the second time in our history. Regrettably, though, it subsequently transpired that Nuneaton could not even muster 4 players for their match, let alone inflict a defeat on the University A team, and so the title eluded us again and we had to be satisfied with 2nd place, two points adrift but 4 pts clear of 3rd place Coventry A.

So in the end I was right, and last night's match really didn't matter anymore. Which was a shame, as we rounded off the season with a 4-0 victory, though the match seemed a lot harder work than the final score line implied.

Keatan, sporting some natty new Isle of Wight Open merch, was tghe last to arrive and the first to finish on Board 1, winning with the Black pieces. I missed the denouement, but previously I had seen that the position was getting quite tactical and the White queen was running short of squares. But who knows what actually happened? Only Keatan, I imagine!

Paul followed soon after, crashing through to victory with a kingside pawn storm that was not to be denied. I was the next point on the score card after an absolute rollercoaster of a game, where I built up a +5 advantage; gave it away; got a completely winning position again but gave that away too, and finally clinched the point after getting my third winning position of the evening. It was all very exciting - just not very good! And then Mike completed the clean sweep though not before failing to take a whole rook with check, which would have left him a rook and bishop up. As it was, one extra piece was enough and the win soon followed.

So that's the Coventry League season over for another year, except for the small matter of the KO Cup Final next week against Division 2 team Rugby A, when we will have to try and overcome the handicap disadvantage, which means we need to win 3-1 to annex the trophy.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to guess what our song is going to be this week.

Black is OK. Kenilworth D slightly less so...

 There was a moment at the British Rapidplay, after I threw away a third winning position, when I inwardly compared myself to the hapless banker in the film Notting Hill. You might know the scene? The poor chap staggers home only to declare "Another disastrous day at the office... millions down the drain I fear...I never did understand this job," or something along those lines. Fortunately, my tournament picked up with 3.5/4 at the finish, which meant that my personal takeaway from the proceedings ended up being a lot more positive. Namely I noticed that I had scored 4.5/5 with black and 1.5/6 with white. So perhaps black really is OK? 

Partly this was the vagaries of playing stronger players with white and weaker players with black in the early rounds. But not entirely... Indeed had my 1950 opponent not missed N-f6+ in the final round, my tally with the white pieces might have been even worse. Heck, I wouldn't presume to say that the chess gods owed me one, but it was certainly a very satisfying final move to play in the tournament.

Just by way of reference, it is possible for games with black to resemble puzzle rush on chess.com. I very much enjoyed playing Rh1# in the below in an earlier round. (My opponent asked me afterwards where I thought he had gone wrong and I did gently suggest he should have given the material back and chopped off the black bishop when that had still been a possibility...) 

So when Kenilworth D travelled to Shirley on Monday night I was intrigued to see if black would prove to be OK once more - and indeed it was - even though as a team we we weren't. Black ended up with 3/4 on the night, and while both our half points came with black, it obviously wasn't enough...

I finished first on Board 2 against Keith Ingram. While playing down a line I knew well, I tried something different to see what would happen (that's what a weekend of fast chess will do for you...) It wasn't great, but I untangled myself reasonably easily, a lot of wood came off and we were the first to finish.

Dylan was playing the very strong Owen Adams (who I suspect is going to be much higher rated very soon) on board 3. A tactical melee ensued. It was very complicated and very difficult. I went through the game in the bar afterwards with Owen and a couple of the Shirley players. Dylan put up a good fight, but unfortunately it wasn't quite enough - still a good effort though.

Which left Dhariya up against Darren Whitmore on one, and Dan playing Dave Thomas on four. There was a time when I thought both Kenilworth players were winning, albeit I now suspect Dhariya never was. Dan was up the exchange against Dave, but Dave had a central pawn break and a bishop that controlled the key queening square. One of those positions where it was hard to see what else Dan could have done. Ultimately he had to return the material and ran very short of time, so a draw was a fair result. A great game for the spectators though.

Dhariya's was even more so. A whole host of pieces were en prise, but what I had probably overlooked in my initial assessment was the strength of Darren's passed b pawn which managed to find its way to the second rank. A whole host of tactics suddenly went Darren's way despite Dhariya's excellent resistance. A really terrific battle - but one that left us 1-3 losers, with Shirley (and black) as the winners!

It doesn't matter too much as the team is safe from relegation and can just enjoy our chess between now and the end of the season. We're next in action next week, when we will see once again if black continues to be OK!

Muy Rapido

This must be a first for the KCC blog - a double tournament report written by someone who wasn't present - let alone playing - at either of them. But thanks to the wonders of modern technology, it almost felt like I was actually there.

At least that's the case as far as the main event of this weekend - the British Rapidplay Championship at Peterborough - was concerned, as there were up to 93 boards transmitted live in each round. With so many KCC players in action, not to mention those from my 4NCL team, Warwickshire Select, it was almost impossible to keep up with everything that was happening. But when the chaos ended, after 11 rounds of 15 mins + 10 secs slugfests spread over 2 days, it was possible to take a deep breath and see how our six brave warriors/gluttons for punishment (delete as applicable!) had acquitted themselves. Pretty well, it's fair to say!

The KCC contingent was, in start rank order:-

28 Jude
37 Billy
82 Bruce B
109 Keatan
115 Andy W

124 Ben

And they finished like this, in a field of 217 players:-

33 Billy 7 pts/TPR 2161
44 Bruce 7 pts/TPR 2016
71 Jude 6 pts/TPR 2171
90 Ben 6 pts/TPR 1785
123 Keatan 5 pts/TPR 1820

125 Andy 5 pts/ TPR 1906

The final scores hide the full drama, though, because - as the Tournament Performance Ratings reveal - Jude and Billy played many of their games on very high boards, while Bruce (to pluck a name at random!) spent much of his time grovelling on the mid/lower boards before producing a storming finish on Sunday, when he scored 4/5, culminating in a last round victory over Jude which massively affected the KCC mini-league table. In fact, Jude seemed to run out of steam completely at the end, losing the last three rounds having climbed to a very exciting 9th= after 8 rounds.

There were some titled scalps claimed by the KCC contingent along the way -  Jude beating Italian FM Lorenzo Fava and pride of place going to Andy for a win over IM Neil Bradbury. Both Keatan (Round 1) and Billy (Round 3) got to play on top board against number 1 seed, GM Gawain Jones (just the 2797 RP rating!), while Jude faced off against GMs Gormally and Kovchan.

So no prizes or titles to be reported from Peterborough, but we do have a Kenilworth triumph to celebrate, as I've left the best news till last. Because in the rather calmer waters of the Warwick University Rapidplay on Saturday, Javier produced a storming performance to win the Open with 6.5/7 - conceding only a draw to top seed, Australian FM Sam Chow (rated 2483!) - who thankfully doesn't bother turning out for Warwick Uni in the Coventry League. Javi imperiously swept all other opposition aside to secure the £160 1st prize and post a massive TPR of 2452, virtually 300 points over his own rapidplay rating. After threatening to play in this event myself, I'm glad I decided to give it a miss and avoid being run over by a Spanish express train! On a weekend where there was "muchos rapidplay" played "muy rapido", Javi takes the prize for being "mas poderoso"!

And to round off this speed chess episode, let's play ourselves out with a suitably themed song!

They Call Me Mr Tibbs

Which even by my standards is an oblique way of introducing the subject of TITLES!

And this we definitely need to do, as it will probably surprise you to learn that we now have 5 - soon to be 6 - over the board titled players at KCC, (holding 7 titles between them) which is pretty amazing for a club/town of our size. It may also surprise you when I reveal that its quite probable that you, dear reader, could join this illustrious band, albeit that for most of us this would have to be at the lower end of the title spectrum! Because, in its infinite wisdom, the ECF sometime ago introduced a whole raft of titles that cover almost all levels of over the board playing standards. (And anyone suggesting that this was a money generating exercise by the ECF should be ashamed of themselves for being so cynical.) 

Starting at the bottom, we have the title of English Chess Maestro, which requires holding a rating of 1400+ as an average for a 12 months' period (minimum 30 games). And the payment of £5. There are currently 42 of these by my count (from the ECF website), and before you say that this is a pretty meaningless title I should point out that it was awarded in February 2016 to Shreyas Royal - now a Grand Master! But KCC doesn't have any ECMs, as our illustrious members have higher aspirations.

The next rung on the ladder is the English Team Maestro, which requires holding a rating of 1600+ as an average for a 12 months period (minimum 30 games). And the payment of £5, of course. I count 53 ETMs, but once again KCC comes up blank in this category. Though future GM Shreyas Royal (Feb 2017) makes another appearance in this list!

Continuing up the ladder we reach English Club Master, which requires holding a rating of 1800+ as an average for a 12 months period (minimum 30 games). And the payment of £5, of course. There are 86 ECMs, and finally we find a KCC name on the list - Paul B (and his daughter Jo, who came along to a recent club night), though I fear he acquired his title well before he joined us.  Surprisingly this title eluded Shreyas Royal, but there is an even more impressive name on the roll of honour, three times British Champion, GM Gawain Jones! (Who, as I type this article, Keatan is just about to play in Round 1 of the British Rapidplay Championship. I am sure he will acquit himself with more credit than I did when I played Gawain in Round 1 of the King's Place Rapidplay Tournament many years ago and lost in under 20 moves with White!) Other interesting names on the ECM list include 3 times British Women's Champion Dinah Norman and former Egghead (and ECF President, I think) C.J. de Mooi.

Rather confusingly, the next ECF category is also ECM, though in this case it stands for English County Master, which requires holding a rating of 2000+ as an average for a 12 months period (minimum 30 games). And the payment this time of £10, reflecting the fact that we ae now moving into the higher reaches of the grading list. There are 61 of these ECMs, and while there are no KCC members amongst them, I have spotted two former team mates of mine at Mitcham Chess Club and 2 current team mates of Bruce B at Central Birmingham.

And still we ascend the ladder, now reaching the title of English Regional Master (ERM, but not to be confused with the Exchange Rate Mechanism, that economists of a certain age will recall), which requires holding a rating of 2100+ as an average for a 12 months period (minimum 30 games). And the payment of £10. There are 58 members of this club, including Andy B and Mike as KCC representatives, though the strongest player of the ERM group is future IM Tom Rendle. I could claim this title, but modesty - and my desire to hang onto a tenner - forbids me from applying.

I expect that a little bit of research and the payment of a further tenner might well see that Andy could claim the next, and highest, ECF awarded title - and one that is really worth having, as it enables you to play in the chess.com Titled Tuesday tournaments with the world's strongest players - that of National Master (NM). As I'm sure that he must have reached the qualification standard in his prime. Which was obviously long before he played for us! The NM requirement is for a rating of 2200+ as an average for a 12 months period (minimum 30 games). And the payment of £10. Which demands a really impressive level of play. And I speak as someone who has never achieved an ECF rating of 2200 for even 1 day, let alone 12 months!

But never mind, as KCC has no less than 2 National Masters anyway! Both Paul L and Jude got awarded the title on June 17, 2024 - in Paul's case the achievement relating to performances several (where several is quite a large number!) years earlier. I guess I was too occupied with other things to celebrate this achievement at the time, so apologies to our two NMs for the late acknowledgement of their richly deserved titles.

But it doesn't end there, as we also have the much grander stage of the world arena to consider, in the form of titles awarded by FIDE. The first step on the road to becoming a GM is to attain an ELO rating of 2200, which is the qualification level for becoming a Candidate Master. Jude reached this milestone in December 2024, when he posted his - to date - peak rating of 2249. Talk about clearing the required height with ease! But what reminded me that this subject needed to be reported on the blog is that he will soon be joined in this elite company by a second KCC member - and its another highly talented graduate of Paul's Coventry Chess Academy - who has reached the 2200+ rating requirement. These kids! Honestly!! So step forward Billy, after a brilliant performance at last month's Isle of Wight Open, where he gained over 100 ELO points and now finds himself in possession of a FIDE rating of 2203. And an ECF rating, by the way, of 2268, which is just one point below Jude!!

Sorry Javi, but at 2265 you are now only the third highest rated player in the club! Its quite unbelievable that we have 3 players rated over 2260. (That's never happened before in KCC history.) Though they have never all played in the same Kenilworth team!

Something upbeat is required to celebrate the latest addition to the KCC title holders club. This will do  nicely, I think.